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The sound bite on Internet Explorer 9 will be a variation of "it doesn't suck", yet the changes to the browser go far deeper than that glib comment can reflect. Microsoft engineered a campaign, starting last year, to change the browser's image with both developers and casual users that was similar to the way that it got people on board with Windows 7. Frequent developer previews, devoid of features showed web developers what the browser could do. It was only with the launch of the first beta that Microsoft added the interface. By then, the browser had already made an impact with developers because of its standards support and in-page rendering speeds and much of the buzz coming from them was positive.

For those of you who spent last year away from the Internet, it's the year that Firefox went from annual major-point updates to a Chrome-style quick-release cycle. How quick? A new major version number along with a spate of performance and feature improvements lands in the Firefox stable version every six weeks. So, Firefox is on version 13 at the time of this review. As a point of comparison, Chrome is currently on version 19 even though it only launched in 2008.

To put it bluntly: Firefox has benefited from the rapid-release cycle. Both fixes and features get out to users faster than before, which puts a safer, sleeker browser in your hands with fewer delays. A vocal, minuscule minority has pooh-poohed the increase in version numbers, but that's hardly a legitimate complaint in a world where mobile apps update silently and effectively.

Google Chrome has matured from a lightweight and fast browsing alternative into an innovative, standard-bearing browser that people love. It's powerful enough to drive its own operating system, Chrome OS. The browser that people can use today, Chrome 20, offers highly competitive features, including synchronization, autofill, and standards compliance, and maintains Google's reputation for building one of the fastest browsers available.

Chrome 20 represents a major milestone for the browser, but those expecting to see dramatic changes in major version-point updates will be disappointed. For a while now, Google has been pushing features over what it calls milestone numbers in a rapid-release cycle, which means that as soon as new features are usable in the beta version of Chrome, Google will likely push them to all users in the stable edition.